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 Y2K
Funk
Comrades
in Arms
Airline
Auctions
Earlier
This Week
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A screen grab from Veteransearch.com |
Comrades in Arms
Jim Lloyd, 49, had heard his father's harrowing war stories for years. Harry Lloyd, 81, had been held captive in a German POW camp for nine months at the end of World War II, and he often told Jim of the close bonds he had formed with three fellow inmates. After the war, though, the four young soldiers returned to the States, hoping to forget as much of the war as possible as they raised their families. In the process, they lost track of each other.
Enter Veteransearch.com, a site designed to reunite American servicemen and women. The site, launched eight months ago by two Vietnam-era veterans, Jack Gentile and Richard Palmeri, at a personal cost of about $125,000, has registered as many as a million names. Gentile quickly found two of Lloyd's fellow POWs, and on the day Jim Lloyd registered his father's request, Harry was speaking to a long, lost comrade. "He was crying he was so happy," said Jim. "I wish other veterans knew of what [the site] is doing."
Gentile estimates that
over 1000 veterans have been reunited through Veteransearch, though he
hopes eventually to register all of the 30 million American veterans who
are still living. "If we're all here, we'll all find each other," said
Palmeri. "And everyone is looking for someone." — Elizabeth
Angell
